Into the Fire

by Elizabeth Moon

  “I—I had not expected this. Does the military know they are here?”

  “No. It would risk their lives. Revealing their location could be fatal to them and to others still in captivity.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “In several remote locations, originally designed for long-term confinement of the criminally insane,” Ky said. “So far, they have been drugged and refused contact with anyone outside the facilities. They were carefully dispersed so they could not have contact with one another, or their families, under the guise of their being contaminated by something in Miksland. Their implants were removed and replaced by others with less function; Miznarii personnel had implants forcibly inserted.”

  “That’s—that’s against our Constitution!” Lane glared at Ky. “No adult individual can be required to accept any internal electronic device.”

  “It happened,” Ky said. “I don’t know who did it, or why, except that Miksland and its base was a huge secret for centuries and someone does not want that secret to come out. Consider that no media interviews with the survivors from Miksland—except for the very brief one I gave—ever appeared. The evidence I preserved has been ‘lost’—such as the logbook of the former base commander, who conveniently died before he could be interrogated.”

  “Do you think this is why Grace Vatta was attacked?”

  “Yes,” Ky said. “And not only with poison gas in her house. Before that, one of the squad that came here seeking fugitives tried to attack her physically in her office. So I suspect that much of the legal mess I’m facing is intended to force me into detention where I, too, can be silenced.”

  “That seems far-fetched,” Lane said. “I see where you might think so, but in fact, by a strict interpretation of the law, you are in violation of the citizenship requirements. The fugitives—are you sure they are not harboring some dangerous pathogen?”

  “You need to meet them, and—if she can get here—the person who witnessed the incarceration of some others.”

  Lane shook her head. “I can see this is going to be a long, long session. It’s a good thing Howard wasn’t free; he becomes quite testy when he has to work late. Better the judge in that case should deal with it than you.” She pulled a voice recorder from her briefcase. “I’d like to start with you, and hear your account of all the events leading up to the death of Master Sergeant Marek.” She turned the recorder on.

  Ky had been over this enough, both in the recent past and in her head, to give a clear summary, from the moment she realized her electrical outlets had been sabotaged through her analysis of who might have done it, and what could be done about it, under the conditions at that time.

  “I had two main problems,” she said. “First, I had no way to commission a court to try Master Sergeant Marek; the only other officer there was Commander Bentik, even less attached to Slotter Key than I was. And she had been partly suborned by him—”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He had lied to her, and attempted to convince her that I was sexually attracted to him and wanted a relationship. She was apparently convinced that I had had sex with him one afternoon—the afternoon that I believe my outlets were sabotaged—because she saw him come out of my quarters.”

  “You didn’t lock your quarters?”

  “I did, but as we found later, he had a master key.”

  She nodded; Ky went on. “Commander Bentik was my second problem, both because she was foreign to Slotter Key and the procedures and traditions of Slotter Key’s military, and because she was so influenced by Master Sergeant Marek. That may well have been, at least partially, the result of her unfamiliarity with our culture. At any rate, she was older than I, and had already shown herself inclined to dispute my decisions—”

  “But she was staff, wasn’t she? Had she combat experience?”

  “None. But she was older, and felt that gave her natural seniority. I was already considering how to replace her without alienating her family—prominent politicians on Cascadia Station—when we came to Slotter Key. I had not succeeded in gaining her wholehearted support, and though she was an expert organizer, good with paperwork, she had managed to cause problems with the Moray government on an official visit there.”

  “I thought Cascadians were supposed to be super-polite.”

  “They are—or think they are.” Ky huffed out a sigh. “They’re polite in their own terms, but they are convinced their terms are the only terms. It has given them a homogeneous and peaceful population, on the whole, but they can get prickly with outsiders.”

  “So—you and she did not get along.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, not until the very end, when she joined with Marek in opposing my command. I don’t think she had anything to do with the sabotage—in fact, her electrical outlets had also been sabotaged, I found out afterward. That part was all Marek, and he was prepared to kill her as well as me, as that sabotage proved. But I found her…” Ky thought for a moment. “Prissy and rigid, is the best way I can put it. When we crashed, she did not—I suppose could not—rise to the occasion, and panicked more than once, endangering others as well as herself. It was a very scary situation, of course, but nearly all the others remained calm and tried to cope.”

  “She knew you disapproved of her behavior?”

  “I suppose…though I suspect that did not bother her. She was more focused on my failings; she regarded the hardships of our time in the life rafts, and on the coast of Miksland, almost as insults to her personally.”

  “There’s been nothing about that in the media,” Lane said.

  “I didn’t notice. When I arrived back in Port Major I was plunged at once into the legalities of transferring my shares to Stella—conferences with lawyers, two court appearances—and the official interviews with Slotter Key Spaceforce about the crash and the evidence I’d managed to save. I didn’t have the time—or frankly the interest—to see how the media handled it. I was, if you’ll forgive me, exhausted from the survival itself.”

  “We can skip that now, but I must have a better idea of what the whole sequence was, in some detail. You say that evidence has gone missing?”

  “So Aunt Grace—the Rector—said. Those interrogations didn’t originate in her office, though she expected to be copied in on results, and wasn’t. When she asked, she was told that two or three essentials had been lost. But Rafe and I were desperate for some time alone, so as soon as we could we flew to Corleigh.”

  Lane smiled. “I hope you had a good vacation.”

  Ky smiled but didn’t answer. “It doesn’t matter. Let me get back to the day of Marek’s death.” Lane nodded and Ky started in again with the next morning’s accusations from Commander Bentik, her choice of the armory as a safe and private place for what had become a shocking and acrimonious conversation, and then Marek’s attempt to kill her and what followed.

  “And you say this Corporal Inyatta was a direct witness to this?”

  “Yes.”

  “By your account I would say it was clearly self-defense, and—in the long run—defense of the other personnel. With a direct witness, we should be able to petition for dismissal of the murder charge, at least.”

  “I had Staff Sergeant Gossin—who is now in custody and under heavy sedation—collect evidence for a future legal investigation. Recordings of the place, of the deceased, of the weapons, and so on.”

  “Are you certain that Gossin is in custody somewhere?”

  “As of yesterday, yes. Someone who actually saw Gossin in custody wanted to contact Aunt Grace, but she was in the hospital and not available. That person spoke briefly to Master Sergeant MacRobert, who sent her to me, here. The gas attack on Aunt Grace came shortly after I had met the three who escaped, and she had begun her own investigation into what happened.”

  “Do you think these attacks are directed at Vatta itself, or a reaction to your discoveries in Miksland?”

  “The latter,” Ky said. “I think we stepped right in the middle
of someone’s profitable activities. Though I don’t know what the profit was, it was clear that both politics and money were involved. Someone had managed to get the resources to build a shuttle landing strip, and convert the part of the underground system they could reach into a base large enough to hold, at a short estimate, fifty to a hundred troops. When we flew back, I was in a Mackensee—um, mercenary company—shuttle, and we flew over the length of the continent: there was at least one open-pit mine, and some kind of settlement along the north coast.”

  “Do you have documentation of that?”

  “Not anymore. I turned it in, just as I did the flight recorder from the shuttle, blood samples from the pilot and copilot, the base commander’s log, and the evidence relating to Marek’s death. Mackensee probably has the documentation of the surface data; I know their recorders were going; I bought my copy from them.”

  “And the communications blackout that was supposed to be keeping anyone from flying over it?”

  “There was a strong magnetic field in places, but the real problem was someone putting the regular planetary surveillance satellites on a loop whenever they were overhead. My fiancé undid that.”

  “Well. I’d like to meet your witness…um…Corporal Inyatta now, if I could.”

  “Certainly,” Ky said. “We’ll need to go upstairs.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DAY 6

  Inyatta, in Stella’s office, was working away at her report, tongue between her teeth. She looked up when Ky opened the door. “Sorry it’s taking so long, Admiral,” she said.

  “Sera Lane, this is Corporal Benazir Inyatta,” Ky said. “Beni, this is Sera Lane. She’s an attorney with Vatta Enterprises, and she’s going to help us with our legal difficulties.”

  “You, mostly,” Lane said. “You’re the one who’s facing murder charges.”

  “All of us,” Ky said. “You can’t separate the cases easily.”

  Lane grinned suddenly. “Sera Ky, you have no idea how cleverly we in the legal profession can slice and dice situations to the advantage of our clients. Sera Stella told the legal department to get you, your fiancé, and his assistant out of trouble; she said nothing about the others.”

  “I’m not going to throw my people to the wolves,” Ky said.

  “I’m not asking you to. I am saying that if Vatta wants to involve itself—its corporate self—in their problems, then it will take more than one attorney and half a legal assistant, and will put a larger crimp in the departmental budget. For which I will need the CEO’s authorization. I’m not unwilling to extend my brief, but I can’t do it on my own.”

  “Stella should be home soon,” Ky said.

  “Good. In the meantime, I would like to confine my activities to your situation, specifically the suspicion of murder, because its impact on your citizenship status is profound.”

  “All right,” Ky said. Her ruffled feelings flattened again. “Beni, Sera Lane will want to record your testimony about the day Marek died. Do you also have that covered in what you’ve written?”

  “Yes, I’ve just finished that part.” Inyatta handed over a sheaf of papers.

  “Thank you,” Lane said. “I’ll read these,” she said to Ky, “and give you an opinion—is there a room I could use?”

  “Would the dining room suit? I’ll leave you alone there, and it’s usually quiet.”

  With Lane settled into the dining room, and Inyatta continuing with the rest of her report in Stella’s office, Ky took her own report into the kitchen, where Barash/Allie was once more working on the cooking. “You’re showing real talent, Allie,” she said. “Whatever that is smells delicious. Did your mother teach you?”

  “Grandmother and aunt, mostly,” Barash said. “My mother died when I was nine, in a traffic accident. My father didn’t remarry. I joined Spaceforce to get away—like most people I think. I would’ve been the designated family cook and housekeeper after my older sisters married.”

  Ky nodded and went on with her writing. She heard the beep of the security system—the gates were opening for someone—the second beep of a vehicle coming into the driveway, another beep, and then—right outside the kitchen door—a crash and the sound of breaking glass.

  “Barash—into cover!” Ky hit the emergency alarm and flipped on the external vid. She saw Stella’s vehicle, pushed sideways into the wall between their driveway and the adjoining property, and a second vehicle, with men in dark clothes erupting from it. Stella appeared trapped in the driver’s compartment. One of the men turned toward the kitchen door, aiming a weapon at it.

  Ky turned back to the main house. Rafe was already on his way downstairs, sock-footed, weapon in hand. The lift hummed, coming up from below. “Rafe—Stella’s car’s been hit in the driveway; one hostile’s targeting the kitchen door. We’ll go out the back.”

  As they opened the French doors to the garden—still and empty in the late-afternoon light—Sera Lane spoke from the dining room. “What’s going on?”

  “Stay in the dining room; it’s safest,” Ky said. “We’re under attack.”

  “Call the law?”

  “Yes. And Vatta Security.”

  She had MacRobert’s number in her skullphone list; she called that as she and Rafe ran across the terrace and onto the grass toward the back garden gate into the driveway. Rafe stopped suddenly, grabbing her arm. Ky whirled, scowling. “What?”

  “Stella on skullphone. Don’t come outside, she says. They don’t want her; they want us. And the house opened. Back inside.” He kept his voice low.

  “No! I’m not going to leave her—”

  “She’s called help herself. Get inside, now.”

  Ky could hear another vehicle coming into the driveway, doors slamming, angry men’s voices. “But—”

  “Now!” He tugged; she resisted.

  Then she heard the voices more clearly, from over the wall. “What are you doing to Sera Vatta? Who are you?”

  “Her security detail,” Rafe said to Ky. “They were only a block away. She’ll be fine now; come inside.”

  Reluctantly, Ky went back in with him, securing the door after them.

  “She’s still talking to me on her skullphone,” Rafe said. “Your phone was busy—you were calling the police, right?”

  “No, MacRobert, in case there’s an attack on Aunt Grace. Sera Lane was calling the police.”

  “Her security team is holding the first guys at gunpoint, and one of them hasn’t put down his weapon yet—the one still pointing it at the kitchen door. She wants us to stay inside, and quiet, until she’s sorted this out.”

  Sera Lane was standing in the dining room doorway, looking worried. “Is everything all right? Is Sera Stella—”

  “She’s fine,” Rafe said. “I’m sorry—I should introduce myself. Rafe Dunbarger, Ky’s fiancé. You’re the lawyer?”

  “Yes; my name’s Lane. You’re sure?”

  “I’m speaking to her by skullphone, Sera Lane.” Rafe now sounded, to Ky, the very essence of an unctuous CEO: fakey. “Her security team and whoever the other is are now at a standoff, with law enforcement on the way. Stella’s in her car, not hurt but trapped by the other car; it pushed her into the wall, and she can’t open the door far enough to get out. Nor can they get in, because they don’t have the right equipment.”

  “Let’s watch on the vid,” Ky said. She went to the security station and switched on the screen, tilting it toward the doorway so Rafe and Sera Lane could also watch. She chose a driveway view from the others tiled across the screen, and enlarged it. “And sound,” Ky said, touching that control. The voices came in clearly.

  “You have no right!” A burly man in black with a smudged SECURITY label on his back waved his arms at a man in a navy jumpsuit with a Vatta logo on the front. “We’re on official business; there are criminals at this address!”

  “You still haven’t told me your organization or your name,” the Vatta man said. Two of his team pointed their weapons at three me
n now standing next to the wall in front of Stella’s car, their arms up. The Vatta vehicle, larger than either of the others, blocked the entrance. One of the six Vatta team members stood by the open gate, weapon in evidence but pointed down. Two more stood behind the angry man. Stella, just visible through the window of her vehicle, looked bored.

  Sirens approached. Ky switched to the front-gate camera as a car marked PORT MAJOR POLICE DEPARTMENT nosed into the drive and stopped. Beyond it, across the street, a slender nattily dressed man stood behind the black palings of that yard, watching.

  “What’s going on here?” asked the first officer out of the car.

  One of the Vatta security detail turned to face him. “Ser, I am Harmon Gothry with Vatta Enterprises Security, part of Stella Vatta’s detail. That is her car, damaged and shoved into the wall. This car”—he pointed—“got between us, then ran into her purposely when she had gone through the gate, pushing her car into the wall. She is still inside. We are holding the perpetrators for you—”

  “Is Sera Vatta injured?”

  “She says she believes not, Officer. But she is unable to get out of her vehicle safely—the wall is too close on one side and on the other side she thinks the car that hit her is too close. Also she is afraid of these men.”

  The officer who got out first nodded and signaled his partners. “I will need to see your identifications and take a field statement.”

  “Of course, Officer.”

  Ky switched the view to the kitchen door camera as the police officer walked up the drive. The house system had already captured his identification as well as the license number and insignia on the car.

  “Have these identified themselves?”

  “No, Officer. They have said they believe Sera Vatta, or her relatives in the house, are criminals. They offered no explanation.”